Paige Defends Lott, But Calls Remarks 'Unfortunate'

Secretary of Education Rod Paige
is defending Sen. Trent Lott for comments some have called racist, made
during a 100th-birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond.

"Senator Lott is a great American, and to try to indicate that
he’s a racist … is absurd," Mr. Paige said Dec. 11 when
Education Week asked him about the senator’s remarks.

The next day, after President Bush condemned the comments, Mr. Paige
added to his response through a spokesman, calling Sen. Lott’s
remarks "unfortunate."

Mr. Lott, who like Secretary Paige is from Mississippi, has been
taking heat from a long list of groups and individuals for suggesting
at the Dec. 5 event for Sen. Thurmond of South Carolina that the United
States would have been better off had Americans elected Mr. Thurmond
president in 1948, when he ran as a segregationist candidate. Both
senators and the secretary are Republicans.

Mr. Lott has since apologized for the comments several times. In a
press conference Dec. 13 in Pascagoula, Miss., he said his words had
constituted a "grievous mistake," and he called segregation a "stain on
our nation’s soul." He described his choice of words at Sen.
Thurmond’s birthday party as "totally unacceptable."

Mr. Lott also was scheduled to appear Dec. 16 on Black Entertainment
Television to discuss his views on race and to offer new proposals
aiming at increasing opportunities for African-Americans.

But the furor over his original comments has continued. Some civil
rights groups have called for Sen. Lott to step down from his post as
Republican leader, which would make him Senate majority leader when the
Republicans take charge of the chamber in January. Members of the
Congressional Black Caucus, all of them Democrats, have blasted Mr.
Lott, as have members of Mr. Lott’s own party.

On Dec. 12, after former GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp
and several conservative pundits, such as the columnist Charles
Krauthammer, had joined the chorus of criticism, President Bush weighed
in during a Philadelphia speech, saying that Mr. Lott’s comments
were "offensive" and that the senator was right to apologize.

Within hours of that speech, Dan Langan, a spokesman for the
Department of Education, added to Mr. Paige’s earlier remarks.
Sen. Lott’s comments were "unfortunate," Mr. Langan said on
behalf of Secretary Paige.

The previous day, Mr. Paige, who is African-American and in 1948 was
attending segregated schools in Mississippi, excused Sen. Lott and said
the criticism was unwarranted.

"This approach to this should be beneath us as Americans," Mr. Paige
said of the reaction to Mr. Lott’s remarks. Mr. Lott "made those
comments at a 100th-birthday party for someone who has served America
for all these years. ... He was caught up in the euphoria of that and
made statements that were complimentary to the honoree that day.
Anybody who wants to read that kind of [racist] meaning into that
statement has some other intent."

During the celebration for Mr. Thurmond, the Senate GOP leader said:
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for
president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest
of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all
these problems over all these years either."

Reactions to Lott, Paige

Sen. Thurmond ran for president in 1948 when he was the governor of
South Carolina. Unhappy with the civil rights stance of the Democratic
Party, of which he was then a member, he ran under the newly raised
banner of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, called himself a
"Dixiecrat," and said one of his goals was preserving racial
segregation. He carried four Southern states, Mississippi among
them.

After he was elected senator in 1954, Mr. Thurmond also
gained—and still holds—the record for the longest Senate
filibuster. That 24-hour, 18-minute speech in 1957 was part of an
ultimately unsuccessful attempt by several Southern senators to block
civil rights legislation. Mr. Thurmond became a Republican in 1964.

Sen. Thurmond, who will retire from the Senate when his seventh full
term expires in January, has renounced his segregationist
positions.

The "Strom Thurmond of 52 years ago is not the Strom Thurmond of
today," Secretary Paige said.

Education groups have condemned Mr. Lott’s comments. Reg
Weaver, the president of the National Education Association, called the
statements "totally unacceptable for the overwhelming majority of
Americans." But he declined to comment on Mr. Paige’s
reaction.

Alex Wohl, a spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers, said
Mr. Lott’s remarks were "outrageous and indefensible." When asked
to comment on Mr. Paige’s reaction, he declined but emphasized
that Mr. Lott’s "comments show a pattern of disregard to the
values that are central to our democracy."

Roger B. Clegg, the general counsel for the Center for Equal
Opportunity, a conservative, Sterling, Va.-based public-policy group
that has criticized affirmative action and bilingual education, also
blasted Mr. Lott’s comments and said they reflect poorly on a
Republican Party that has tried to reach out to minorities. "The party
needs to think long and hard about whether it can afford to have a
visible national leader with a lack of credibility on an important
issue like civil rights," Mr. Clegg said.

Mr. Clegg praised Mr. Paige for his reaction to the controversy,
however. The secretary, he said, is a "generous-spirited person, and
those remarks do him proud."

"The fact that Secretary Paige is someone who is likely to be truly
offended and threatened by Senator Lott’s remarks, if anyone
is—I think it’s significant that he isn’t offended or
threatened," Mr. Clegg said.

But Julian Bond, the chairman of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, said he was disappointed to hear Mr.
Paige’s reaction, despite the list of conservatives who have
decried Mr. Lott’s remarks.

"It’s sad that party loyalty makes him defend the
indefensible," Mr. Bond asserted of Mr. Paige. "He’s in a tough
job, and I guess he thinks he’s got to tow the party line to hold
that job."

Separate and Unequal

Mr. Paige, who is 69, has a unique perspective on the controversy.
Not only is he one of the highest-ranking African-American officials in
the Bush administration, and the first black to serve as U.S. secretary
of education, he also grew up in Mississippi during a time when the
state’s name was virtually synonymous with racial inequality.

An avid athlete, Mr. Paige went to a segregated high school, and in
the past has taken public notice of the fact that a nearby school
populated exclusively by white students had its own gym and lighted
football field, while his didn’t. Students at his school used
hand-me-down books, Mr. Paige told the Houston Chronicle in
1994.

But in a 2001 interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Paige
declined to elaborate on the differences between white and black
schools when he was growing up.

"I’m reluctant to get too graphic about those because
it’s almost irrelevant to me now ..." he said, adding that his
strong family support had helped him overcome racial barriers. "That
was the period of time I grew up in, but we didn’t allow that to
retard our full development."

In the Dec. 11 interview with Education Week, Mr. Paige,
mirroring his remarks about Mr. Thurmond, said that Mississippi has
changed over the years and has worked hard to shed its racially
divisive image.

"The Mississippi of 52 years ago is not the Mississippi now," he
said. "Compared to a lot of places in America, Mississippi has done a
lot of work on the relationship between those groups," he said,
referring to blacks and whites.

Mr. Paige also said that Mr. Thurmond had changed his stance on
racial issues over the years and praised the centenarian for his
support of historically black colleges and universities while in the
Senate. In addition, Mr. Paige said Mr. Lott has been a stalwart
supporter of the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001, "which is aimed
directly at helping disadvantaged children, most of which are
minority," he said. "There are more important issues for us to deal
with."

Mr. Paige said he had no problem defending Mr. Lott. "I’m
unabashed about it," he said.

In response to a follow-up request to the Department of Education, a
spokesman declined to provide more information on Mr. Paige’s
thoughts on Mississippi’s support of Mr. Thurmond in 1948 or
whether the country would be better off if Mr. Thurmond had been
elected, as Mr. Lott asserted.

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